Bond — which is a San Francisco-based VC firm with a cool website — just published this 340-page report on Artificial Intelligence. One of the authors of the report is Mary Meeker. She has been called the "Queen of the Internet" thanks to a 20-year run of presentations about the state of the internet, and her perceived ability to identity new trends early. So people are paying attention to this report. Her last one was in 2019 and I mentioned her 2018 report on this blog, here.
At this point, it's boring to say that AI is ushering in "unprecedented" global change. Everyone sends around snippets from ChatGPT. I incorporate some sort of AI-powered tool all the time in my daily workflow. And we've started using it on our development projects to help with tedious things like design coordination. Eventually we'll probably stop calling it out as "AI" and just refer to it as the things that computers and the internet can do.
But I think it's valuable to point out that this has been a really long time coming. The report talks about an "AI winter" from 1967 to 1996. That's a long time to stay motivated and interested in something that doesn't seem to be gaining traction. And it's a reminder that crypto is still early. Even though I also use blockchains every day and I've already transitioned (or am transitioning) a lot of my online life, including this blog.
Of particular relevance to this community is probably the fact that AI is also going to have a meaningful impact on our built environment. One of the sections in the report is called "Physical World AI," and it talks about how quickly data centers are now being built (compared to housing) and how Waymo (using AI) has taken something like 27% of the ride share market in San Francisco in the span of just 20 months.
This transportation product is now scaling, and cities have always responded and remade themselves according to new mobility innovations. This time won't be any different.
Cover photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said the company was paying $6.5 billion to buy IO, a one-year-old start-up created by Jony Ive, a former top Apple executive who designed the iPhone. The all-stock deal, which effectively unites Silicon Valley royalty, is intended to usher in what the two men call “a new family of products” for the age of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is shorthand for a future technology that achieves human-level intelligence.
$6.5 billion is a damn good valuation for a one-year-old startup, which says something about the current AI cycle. But what you may be less familiar with are Jony Ive's efforts to revitalize Jackson Square in downtown San Francisco. In a recent interview with Monocle, published in their June 2025 issue, it was reported that his company LoveFrom (check out their website, it's fun) has spent nearly $100 million on buildings in the area, equating to at least half a city block.
Jackson Square is one of the oldest areas of San Francisco. It dates back to the 1849 gold rush and is currently on the National Register of Historic Places. Ive also has a soft spot for the area. Apparently it was where he first landed in the US in 1989, after receiving a bursary following his graduation from Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University). So this is allegedly not about money:
“There’s no fiscal benefit for us in investing in these buildings; these aren’t a means to an end, if that end is generating revenue,” says Ive.
According to the WSJ, the US office market saw a significant increase in leasing activity in the first quarter of this year. Approximately 115 million square feet of space was leased, which represents a 13% increase from the previous quarter and the highest level since before the pandemic in mid-2019.
But then, tariffs for everybody! Now tenants are worried that a recession is coming, inflation is going to rise, and that so too will interest rates. Uncertainty is bad for business.
Here's where things broadly sit as of the beginning of this year:
The national office vacancy rate was 19.7% at the end of February 2025
San Francisco had the highest vacancy at 27.8%
$7 billion worth of office sales were recorded in the first two months of the year and the average price was $177 per square foot
The cheapest markets are/were in the midwest with Minneapolis-Saint Paul recording the lowest average sale price of $50 per square foot (versus $215 psf a year ago)
Chicago averaged $67 psf
The most expensive markets were places like San Diego ($662 psf), Manhattan ($450 psf), San Francisco ($282 psf), Miami ($239 psf), and Los Angeles ($207 psf) — we continue to see a flight to quality
Maybe things will get better later this year, or maybe they won't. It's impossible to know what comes next in this trade war.
Cover photo by Delia Little on
Bond — which is a San Francisco-based VC firm with a cool website — just published this 340-page report on Artificial Intelligence. One of the authors of the report is Mary Meeker. She has been called the "Queen of the Internet" thanks to a 20-year run of presentations about the state of the internet, and her perceived ability to identity new trends early. So people are paying attention to this report. Her last one was in 2019 and I mentioned her 2018 report on this blog, here.
At this point, it's boring to say that AI is ushering in "unprecedented" global change. Everyone sends around snippets from ChatGPT. I incorporate some sort of AI-powered tool all the time in my daily workflow. And we've started using it on our development projects to help with tedious things like design coordination. Eventually we'll probably stop calling it out as "AI" and just refer to it as the things that computers and the internet can do.
But I think it's valuable to point out that this has been a really long time coming. The report talks about an "AI winter" from 1967 to 1996. That's a long time to stay motivated and interested in something that doesn't seem to be gaining traction. And it's a reminder that crypto is still early. Even though I also use blockchains every day and I've already transitioned (or am transitioning) a lot of my online life, including this blog.
Of particular relevance to this community is probably the fact that AI is also going to have a meaningful impact on our built environment. One of the sections in the report is called "Physical World AI," and it talks about how quickly data centers are now being built (compared to housing) and how Waymo (using AI) has taken something like 27% of the ride share market in San Francisco in the span of just 20 months.
This transportation product is now scaling, and cities have always responded and remade themselves according to new mobility innovations. This time won't be any different.
Cover photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said the company was paying $6.5 billion to buy IO, a one-year-old start-up created by Jony Ive, a former top Apple executive who designed the iPhone. The all-stock deal, which effectively unites Silicon Valley royalty, is intended to usher in what the two men call “a new family of products” for the age of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is shorthand for a future technology that achieves human-level intelligence.
$6.5 billion is a damn good valuation for a one-year-old startup, which says something about the current AI cycle. But what you may be less familiar with are Jony Ive's efforts to revitalize Jackson Square in downtown San Francisco. In a recent interview with Monocle, published in their June 2025 issue, it was reported that his company LoveFrom (check out their website, it's fun) has spent nearly $100 million on buildings in the area, equating to at least half a city block.
Jackson Square is one of the oldest areas of San Francisco. It dates back to the 1849 gold rush and is currently on the National Register of Historic Places. Ive also has a soft spot for the area. Apparently it was where he first landed in the US in 1989, after receiving a bursary following his graduation from Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University). So this is allegedly not about money:
“There’s no fiscal benefit for us in investing in these buildings; these aren’t a means to an end, if that end is generating revenue,” says Ive.
According to the WSJ, the US office market saw a significant increase in leasing activity in the first quarter of this year. Approximately 115 million square feet of space was leased, which represents a 13% increase from the previous quarter and the highest level since before the pandemic in mid-2019.
But then, tariffs for everybody! Now tenants are worried that a recession is coming, inflation is going to rise, and that so too will interest rates. Uncertainty is bad for business.
Here's where things broadly sit as of the beginning of this year:
The national office vacancy rate was 19.7% at the end of February 2025
San Francisco had the highest vacancy at 27.8%
$7 billion worth of office sales were recorded in the first two months of the year and the average price was $177 per square foot
The cheapest markets are/were in the midwest with Minneapolis-Saint Paul recording the lowest average sale price of $50 per square foot (versus $215 psf a year ago)
Chicago averaged $67 psf
The most expensive markets were places like San Diego ($662 psf), Manhattan ($450 psf), San Francisco ($282 psf), Miami ($239 psf), and Los Angeles ($207 psf) — we continue to see a flight to quality
Maybe things will get better later this year, or maybe they won't. It's impossible to know what comes next in this trade war.
Cover photo by Delia Little on
From a real estate perspective, I don't think this first part is true. There likely will be a fiscal benefit. As of the first quarter of 2025, downtown San Francisco's office vacancy rate was hovering somewhere above 30%. The pandemic infamously hollowed out the city and led to a bunch of negative externalities. But the city has always been a place of extreme boom and busts, and a place of disruption. It will reinvent itself.
So whether or not he cares about fiscal benefit, I think Ive has been accumulating property at exactly the right time — when almost everyone else is pessimistic on the city. At the same time, he's going above and beyond what a typical landlord would do. For instance, LoveFrom, quite famously, provided a pro bono rebrand for a much-loved and 50-year-old bookstore in the area, William Stout Architectural Books. The design agency allocates time for side projects just "for the love of doing it."
This is a form of city building that seems far less common in Canada. I'm talking about the scenario where a singular rich person decides that they really love a place and want to revitalize it. The other example that I have in my mind is Dan Gilbert and downtown Detroit. As of 2024, his firm Bedrock was reported to own 131 properties and approximately 18 million square feet of space, making him the largest and most prominent landlord in downtown.
I would also argue that this is the most effective way to do it. Because who is going to give more shits: the person running a fund with a 5-7 year time horizon and an IRR clock, or the intrinsically motivated person with a deep personal attachment to a place who wants nothing more than to see it thrive and succeed? My bet is on the latter. It also doesn't hurt when you strike an all-stock deal with OpenAI for $6.5 billion.
Cover photo by Frames For Your Heart on Unsplash
From a real estate perspective, I don't think this first part is true. There likely will be a fiscal benefit. As of the first quarter of 2025, downtown San Francisco's office vacancy rate was hovering somewhere above 30%. The pandemic infamously hollowed out the city and led to a bunch of negative externalities. But the city has always been a place of extreme boom and busts, and a place of disruption. It will reinvent itself.
So whether or not he cares about fiscal benefit, I think Ive has been accumulating property at exactly the right time — when almost everyone else is pessimistic on the city. At the same time, he's going above and beyond what a typical landlord would do. For instance, LoveFrom, quite famously, provided a pro bono rebrand for a much-loved and 50-year-old bookstore in the area, William Stout Architectural Books. The design agency allocates time for side projects just "for the love of doing it."
This is a form of city building that seems far less common in Canada. I'm talking about the scenario where a singular rich person decides that they really love a place and want to revitalize it. The other example that I have in my mind is Dan Gilbert and downtown Detroit. As of 2024, his firm Bedrock was reported to own 131 properties and approximately 18 million square feet of space, making him the largest and most prominent landlord in downtown.
I would also argue that this is the most effective way to do it. Because who is going to give more shits: the person running a fund with a 5-7 year time horizon and an IRR clock, or the intrinsically motivated person with a deep personal attachment to a place who wants nothing more than to see it thrive and succeed? My bet is on the latter. It also doesn't hurt when you strike an all-stock deal with OpenAI for $6.5 billion.
Cover photo by Frames For Your Heart on Unsplash
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